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waste
(redirected from lays waste)

   Also found in: Medical, Legal, Financial, Encyclopedia 0.01 sec.
waste  (wst)
v. wast·ed, wast·ing, wastes
v.tr.
1. To use, consume, spend, or expend thoughtlessly or carelessly.
2. To cause to lose energy, strength, or vigor; exhaust, tire, or enfeeble: Disease wasted his body.
3. To fail to take advantage of or use for profit; lose: waste an opportunity.
4.
a. To destroy completely.
b. Slang To kill; murder.
v.intr.
1. To lose energy, strength, weight, or vigor; become weak or enfeebled: wasting away from an illness.
2. To pass without being put to use: Time is wasting.
n.
1. The act or an instance of wasting or the condition of being wasted: a waste of talent; gone to waste.
2. A place, region, or land that is uninhabited or uncultivated; a desert or wilderness.
3. A devastated or destroyed region, town, or building; a ruin.
4.
a. An unusable or unwanted substance or material, such as a waste product.
b. Something, such as steam, that escapes without being used.
5. Garbage; trash.
6. The undigested residue of food eliminated from the body; excrement.
adj.
1. Regarded or discarded as worthless or useless: waste trimmings.
2. Used as a conveyance or container for refuse: a waste bin.
3. Excreted from the body: waste matter.
Idiom:
waste (one's) breath
To gain or accomplish nothing by speaking.

[Middle English wasten, from Old North French waster, from Latin vstre, to make empty, from vstus, empty; see eu- in Indo-European roots.]
Synonyms: waste, blow1, consume, dissipate, fritter1, squander
These verbs mean to spend or expend without restraint and often to no avail: wasted my inheritance; blew a fortune at the casino; time and money that was consumed in litigation; dissipated their energies in pointless argument; frittering away her entire allowance; squandered his talent on writing jingles.
Antonym: save1

waste [weɪst]
vb
1. (tr) to use, consume, or expend thoughtlessly, carelessly, or to no avail
2. (tr) to fail to take advantage of to waste an opportunity
3. (Medicine) (when intr, often foll by away) to lose or cause to lose bodily strength, health, etc.
4. to exhaust or become exhausted
5. (tr) to ravage
6. (tr) Informal to murder or kill I want that guy wasted by tomorrow
n
1. the act of wasting or state of being wasted
2. a failure to take advantage of something
3. anything unused or not used to full advantage
4. anything or anyone rejected as useless, worthless, or in excess of what is required
5. garbage, rubbish, or trash
6. (Earth Sciences / Physical Geography) a land or region that is devastated or ruined
7. (Earth Sciences / Physical Geography) a land or region that is wild or uncultivated
8. (Life Sciences & Allied Applications / Physiology) Physiol
a.  the useless products of metabolism
b.  indigestible food residue
9. (Earth Sciences / Physical Geography) disintegrated rock material resulting from erosion
10. (Law) Law reduction in the value of an estate caused by act or neglect, esp by a life-tenant
adj
1. rejected as useless, unwanted, or worthless
2. produced in excess of what is required
3. not cultivated, inhabited, or productive waste land
4. (Life Sciences & Allied Applications / Physiology)
a.  of or denoting the useless products of metabolism
b.  of or denoting indigestible food residue
5. destroyed, devastated, or ruined
6. designed to contain or convey waste products
lay waste to devastate or destroy
[from Anglo-French waster, from Latin vastāre to lay waste, from vastus empty]
wastable  adj

waste  (wst)
Noun
An unusable or unwanted substance or material, such as a waste product. See also hazardous wastelandfill
Verb
To lose or cause to lose energy, strength, weight, or vigor, as by the progressive effects of a disease such as metastatic cancer.

Waste 
  1. In delay we waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day —William Shakespeare
  2. Wasted his wealth like spittle —Stephen Vincent Benet
  3. Wasted more money in a day than a Boeing 747 full of proverbial welfare queens could have squandered in a century —Hodding Carter III, Wall Street Journal March 30, 1986

    Carter’s simile referred to new defense spending policies.

  4. Wasteful as drunkenness at undue times —Robert Browning
  5. Wasteful as regrets —Anon

waste


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